Does divorce occur if the husband says to his foreign Muslim wife: "You will not be my wife if you do such and such," and she then proceeds to do it out of defiance, knowing that he did not utter an explicit word of divorce because she is not proficient in Arabic?

If a man says to his wife: "If you do such and such, you will not be my wife," then if he intends it as a promise of divorce, no divorce occurs. However, if he does not intend it as a promise of divorce, then it is a metaphor (kinayah), and divorce does not occur by it except with intention. So, if he intended divorce when the action occurred, and the action did occur, then divorce takes place.

If the wife performs this action defiantly with the intention of causing a divorce, the majority of scholars hold that it occurs. However, some verifying scholars (such as Ashhab and Ibn al-Qayyim) held that it does not occur, treating her by the opposite of her intention.

As for the utterance being in a language other than Arabic, it does not prevent divorce from occurring, for the consideration is the meaning.